whistleridge:If the console makers want to try to move to that model, I suppose I could see that working: $100 for a PS4, plus a 3 year contract at $10/month plus having to buy the games through their online (locked) marketplaces. But it would take years to get that infrastructure in place, and we would surely have heard about it by now.

ha-ha-guy:Theaetetus: This thread: "Yeah, if Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo refuse to let you play used games, then everybody would switch to Valve! Woohoo, hooray for Steam!"Reality: Valve sued in Germany over the Right to Resell Games "Because Valve forbids its users to sell or transfer their accounts to another person, the exchange of games that can only be played online is impossible, she said. This means that a Steam user only partially owns games, Elbrecht said. "If I pay the full price for a game, then why am I not allowed to do with it what I want," she added."

You can transfer games. You can't transfer an account. The idiot suing Valve should learn how to use the transfer game function built into Steam instead.

/wait why are you even off my ignore list?//I think you were being so dumb in some other thread I just had to remove you and see

Seems like there's an opportunity for the publishers to make some money without completely pissing off all of their customers.All they'd need to do is to allow re-activation of used games for a *reasonable* fee ($10-$15)

That lets them recoup some of the money they're "losing" on the 2nd hand game market.

Lots of companies successfully charge a hefty premium for their products because of high resale values (BMW, Snap-On)

umad:moothemagiccow: ha-ha-guy: The way Valve was talking, there were going to go in and make their own flavor of Linux that was easy and attractive to make games for. They would then populate the title list with their own IP.

Aren't these guys famous for making vaporware?

Do you really not know who Valve is? I don't think this is the thread you are looking for. Go back to your Angry Birds.

I remember hearing something about a third half life and a 2nd dota.

Seriously, they release what, like 1 game a year? And nothing last year?

RoxtarRyan:ha-ha-guy: /plus Valve can release its operating system for general download and instantly get market share since millions of people will download it and set up a dual boot on their PC//Valve can release a beta, stick some of their games on it for free (or on trial) and suddenly have X% of the market share without ever shipping a piece of hardware./especially if they drop strong hits about launch day Half Life, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and all the other IPs they control

You do realize people can already use Steam and play those games without dual-booting, right? Like, there is an application that you can run to play those games right now? Why would anyone want to dual boot their machine so it can do only one thing? At that point, your PC is nothing but a console, but even more limited than the 360 and PS3 is right now (being able to surf the web, do youtube, videos, music, etc.)

No, I just somehow blissfully remained totally unaware that Steam worked on Windows and lets you play games on Windows. Somehow I know what Valve is, what Steam is, and all that, but I had no clue it worked on Windows.

The whole reason Valve started talking about this was unhappiness over Microsoft's Windows 8 policies, the MS App Store, and things like that. That led Gabe to start talking about gaming studios moving over to Linux. The idea was a Linux that was all nice and user friendly for gaming, email, web surfing, watching videos, functioning as a home server, a media PC to the TV, etc. The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

I'd argue the idea has merit, in that people who can't master any type of moderately difficult computer related concept left for console gaming years ago. Those who remain would likely be willing to at least consider a dual boot option or buy a Valve console to play games.

Exactly what Bioware does for a lot of their games. The Mass Effect series, coming to mind, required a unique code in order for a lot of zero-day "DLC", or even using post zero-day DLC. You can play the game used and not pay it, but you're playing the bare-bones version. Good enough for some, I imagine.

Eddie Adams from Torrance:Seems like there's an opportunity for the publishers to make some money without completely pissing off all of their customers.All they'd need to do is to allow re-activation of used games for a *reasonable* fee ($10-$15)

That lets them recoup some of the money they're "losing" on the 2nd hand game market.

Lots of companies successfully charge a hefty premium for their products because of high resale values (BMW, Snap-On)

They're already starting that with multiplayer passes. Buy a game brand new, get a one time activation code that allows you to use the multiplayer servers. If you buy the game used, you can still do anything you want on single-player, but have to buy an online pass (usually $10-$15) to play multiplayer. This is the most that console developers have done to quell the used game market so far. PC developers have pushed the boundaries a little further with various DRM, and had their hand bitten pretty bad in the process *cough* UBISoft *cough*

Fark accounts come with a handy Ignore Feature. Use it to filter out those posters whose comments you'd prefer not to read. Keep in mind that discussing who's on your ignore list is the opposite of ignoring. It crosses the line into trolling of other Fark members and may result in a suspension of posting privileges.

/if you support used games you are really supporting a vampiric business model called Gamestop, that's it. If that didn't exist you would damn well find you could buy games at prices you want like the the Master Gaming Race can via steam. Do I buy a lot of games at the $60 mark? Nope. Do I buy a lot of first-hand games? Yep.

Adjusted for inflation, most SNES games cost around $80 new and some went well above $100. Charticle

Yeah, that's why I got 1 game for my birthday and 1 game for Christmas back in the late 80s/early 90s.

ha-ha-guy:The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

If they did that, then that is a prime example of one company trying to be the biggest douche they can. There is nothing in Win8 that stops Steam from functioning or working like Win7. I have it on my laptop, and Steam runs fine, no problems. This is them being pissy that MS is putting something with their OS that gives people another venue for purchasing 3rd party software. If anything else, that would drive people away from Steam to other companies like Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Amazon Game Downloads, etc. Why bother setting up a dual-boot to play games when there are companies who are more than happy to take your money without modifying your computer?

BumpInTheNight:/if you support used games you are really supporting a vampiric business model called Gamestop, that's it.

No, that's not it. You're supporting a thousand mom-and-pop shops that make fark-all on new games and rely on used sales to keep the store open. You're supporting gamers who sell their old games on eBay so they can go buy new ones. You're supporting kids trading games for the weekend so they can try out a game they haven't played before. You're supporting rental services like GameFly.

And you're also supporting the dickbags at GameStop, sure. But I'm not willing to cut my nose off to spite my face.

RoxtarRyan:ha-ha-guy: The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

If they did that, then that is a prime example of one company trying to be the biggest douche they can. There is nothing in Win8 that stops Steam from functioning or working like Win7. I have it on my laptop, and Steam runs fine, no problems. This is them being pissy that MS is putting something with their OS that gives people another venue for purchasing 3rd party software. If anything else, that would drive people away from Steam to other companies like Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Amazon Game Downloads, etc. Why bother setting up a dual-boot to play games when there are companies who are more than happy to take your money without modifying your computer?

Because the store was only part of the issue. A number of the companies also expressed unhappiness with the development tools for Windows 8. MS may have gotten its shiat together and fixed their dev tools though.

moothemagiccow:eddievercetti: HeartBurnKid: GAT_00: FirstNationalBastard: The new X-Box will fail.

Not when Sony does the same thing. Nintendo probably will too.

Nintendo's system is already out. They didn't.

It's failing...kinda.

They've sold 3 million worldwide. It's a failure because you can walk into a store and buy it? Whoever was expecting to replicate the Wii's success is a dumbass, including anyone at nintendo.

I actually saw a side-by-side comparison that showed it's actually sold more than the 360 did at this point in its life-cycle. But people have been eager to call gloom-and-doom for Nintendo since the GameCube, so they'll seize on anything, including the new system being slightly less successful than Nintendo thought it would be.

RoxtarRyan:ha-ha-guy: The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

If they did that, then that is a prime example of one company trying to be the biggest douche they can. There is nothing in Win8 that stops Steam from functioning or working like Win7. I have it on my laptop, and Steam runs fine, no problems. This is them being pissy that MS is putting something with their OS that gives people another venue for purchasing 3rd party software. If anything else, that would drive people away from Steam to other companies like Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Amazon Game Downloads, etc. Why bother setting up a dual-boot to play games when there are companies who are more than happy to take your money without modifying your computer?

HeartBurnKid:moothemagiccow: eddievercetti: HeartBurnKid: GAT_00: FirstNationalBastard: The new X-Box will fail.

Not when Sony does the same thing. Nintendo probably will too.

Nintendo's system is already out. They didn't.

It's failing...kinda.

They've sold 3 million worldwide. It's a failure because you can walk into a store and buy it? Whoever was expecting to replicate the Wii's success is a dumbass, including anyone at nintendo.

I actually saw a side-by-side comparison that showed it's actually sold more than the 360 did at this point in its life-cycle. But people have been eager to call gloom-and-doom for Nintendo since the GameCube, so they'll seize on anything, including the new system being slightly less successful than Nintendo thought it would be.

The problem is that had the Wii U was up against the PS3 and 360 back in 2006, it would have kicked ass but now, everyone is saying Nintendo is playing catch up.

And the people who are saying doom and gloom to Nintendo are just Sony and 360 fans. The 3DS took awhile to pick up steam but it's selling like hotcakes now.

kab:Turn X-Box Live into a free service for all registered owners, follow Steam's lead as far as having frequent sales on fairly new titles, and I don't think you'll hear many people complaining THAT much when the dust settles.

Keep trying to nickel and dime your base, however, and charging $60 despite saving a good chunk of change on the lack of physical distribution, and MS deserves to be abandoned like a sinking ship.

right well the entire reason digital distribution took off in the first place was because:

I love my 360 and have had countless hours of fun with it, however if they actually go this route, count me in as not buying.If they require a constant connection, I'm so out it's not funny. Like people said on the first page: Welcome to Sonytown.

As for used games, I can't really comprehend what that would be like. I would hope the prices would come down for new games. However it takes years to make a new game. I did not mind paying $60 for Borderlands 2, because a building full of adults spend 3 years creating it for me. Price seems kinda low if you actually consider what goes into each game.

They've sold 3 million worldwide. It's a failure because you can walk into a store and buy it? Whoever was expecting to replicate the Wii's success is a dumbass, including anyone at nintendo.

I actually saw a side-by-side comparison that showed it's actually sold more than the 360 did at this point in its life-cycle. But people have been eager to call gloom-and-doom for Nintendo since the GameCube, so they'll seize on anything, including the new system being slightly less successful than Nintendo thought it would be.

The problem is that had the Wii U was up against the PS3 and 360 back in 2006, it would have kicked ass but now, everyone is saying Nintendo is playing catch up.

And the people who are saying doom and gloom to Nintendo are just Sony and 360 fans. The 3DS took awhile to pick up steam but it's selling like hotcakes now.

eh, Wii's situation is something that'll likely never be replicated... you had an extremely underpowered console, a unique forced control input that had latency/precision issues that would later come to bite them in the butt software wise (while not really being a sales hinderence), and an archaic online "feature"

Wii U has far more potential to stay relevant for years to come even if it's not as powerful as the others

ha-ha-guy:RoxtarRyan: ha-ha-guy: /plus Valve can release its operating system for general download and instantly get market share since millions of people will download it and set up a dual boot on their PC//Valve can release a beta, stick some of their games on it for free (or on trial) and suddenly have X% of the market share without ever shipping a piece of hardware./especially if they drop strong hits about launch day Half Life, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and all the other IPs they control

You do realize people can already use Steam and play those games without dual-booting, right? Like, there is an application that you can run to play those games right now? Why would anyone want to dual boot their machine so it can do only one thing? At that point, your PC is nothing but a console, but even more limited than the 360 and PS3 is right now (being able to surf the web, do youtube, videos, music, etc.)

No, I just somehow blissfully remained totally unaware that Steam worked on Windows and lets you play games on Windows. Somehow I know what Valve is, what Steam is, and all that, but I had no clue it worked on Windows.

The whole reason Valve started talking about this was unhappiness over Microsoft's Windows 8 policies, the MS App Store, and things like that. That led Gabe to start talking about gaming studios moving over to Linux. The idea was a Linux that was all nice and user friendly for gaming, email, web surfing, watching videos, functioning as a home server, a media PC to the TV, etc. The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

I'd argue the idea has merit, in that people who can't master any type of moderately difficult computer related concept left for console gaming years ago. Those who remain would likely be willing to at least consider a dual boot option or buy a Valve console to play games.

You're missing a critical step -- Valve is also pushing for computer manufacturers to sell preconfigured "Steamboxes"; that is, SFF computers that boot Linux and go straight into Steam's Big Picture Mode. Xi3 was actually showing a prototype off at CES, and Gabe has confirmed they're talking with other hardware manufacturers about doing the same thing.

They've sold 3 million worldwide. It's a failure because you can walk into a store and buy it? Whoever was expecting to replicate the Wii's success is a dumbass, including anyone at nintendo.

I actually saw a side-by-side comparison that showed it's actually sold more than the 360 did at this point in its life-cycle. But people have been eager to call gloom-and-doom for Nintendo since the GameCube, so they'll seize on anything, including the new system being slightly less successful than Nintendo thought it would be.

The problem is that had the Wii U was up against the PS3 and 360 back in 2006, it would have kicked ass but now, everyone is saying Nintendo is playing catch up.

And the people who are saying doom and gloom to Nintendo are just Sony and 360 fans. The 3DS took awhile to pick up steam but it's selling like hotcakes now.

eh, Wii's situation is something that'll likely never be replicated... you had an extremely underpowered console, a unique forced control input that had latency/precision issues that would later come to bite them in the butt software wise (while not really being a sales hinderence), and an archaic online "feature"

Wii U has far more potential to stay relevant for years to come even if it's not as powerful as the others

RoxtarRyan:RoxtarRyan: ha-ha-guy: The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

If they did that, then that is a prime example of one company trying to be the biggest douche they can. There is nothing in Win8 that stops Steam from functioning or working like Win7. I have it on my laptop, and Steam runs fine, no problems. This is them being pissy that MS is putting something with their OS that gives people another venue for purchasing 3rd party software. If anything else, that would drive people away from Steam to other companies like Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Amazon Game Downloads, etc. Why bother setting up a dual-boot to play games when there are companies who are more than happy to take your money without modifying your computer?

And even moreso when the usage of Steam on Win8 desktops is still increasing, according to the recent Steam H&S Survey.

That is pretty interesting. Looks like in a month or two, Windows 8 will have more Steam gamers on that platform than XP. Guess the haters are going to have to start eating crow about Win 8.

/Oh, that's cute, OSX almost has 3% and Linux is up to nearly 1% of gamers these days. Sounds about right.

RoxtarRyan:ha-ha-guy: The carrot go install it would be the Linux version of Steam that offered exclusive features or titles the Windows 8 version of Steam lacked.

If they did that, then that is a prime example of one company trying to be the biggest douche they can. There is nothing in Win8 that stops Steam from functioning or working like Win7. I have it on my laptop, and Steam runs fine, no problems. This is them being pissy that MS is putting something with their OS that gives people another venue for purchasing 3rd party software. If anything else, that would drive people away from Steam to other companies like Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Amazon Game Downloads, etc. Why bother setting up a dual-boot to play games when there are companies who are more than happy to take your money without modifying your computer?

What drives me away from Steam is not being able to play games I already bought. I pull out some old stuff like Battlefield 2142 and try to install it. Of course I don't remember what my username was from six years ago, so I have Steam email my username to my email which I luckily still have. Then I go to log on and get some "fark you in the ass" error. I'll go home and try it again - don't rememeber what the deal was exactly, but it was a circular string of shiat as I recall. Total bullshiat. In the future I'll just write down username and password information on the game manual - when I actually purchase physical media.

BumpInTheNight:I know the charges on my credit card are going to Valve not Bethesda but I do know inevitably some of it will make it back to Bethesda, unlike when you buy a used game from Gamestop

Do you own the games or not? If you own them, you can resell them. Period. That's what ownership means. If you take away that, then you don't own the product. At best, you are purchasing a lifetime use license.

Now, if the game companies want to go to a license/lease system, then fine. Let them be upfront about that and come up with a model that makes sense for such a system. Such a model should not be based around a point-of-sale concept, however.

But don't give me a hybrid system where I "buy" a product that I do not, in any meaningful sense of the word, own.

which means there's going to be a massive resurgence in computer gaming as consoles die a slow, strangled death.

I think that you are vastly overestimating the amount of consumer outrage that would actually happen.

I think that it can be hard for people in the tech-savvy Fark demographic to fully appreciate the absence of give-a-farks that the average person feels about these kinds of schemes.

you're right. gamers would NEVER be outraged over changes like this. Because gamers, as we all know, are a calm and reasonable sort of personality type who understand business realities and won't complain about any reasonable comment made by the industry corporate execs.

ladyfortuna:Weaver95: GAT_00: FirstNationalBastard: The new X-Box will fail.

Not when Sony does the same thing. Nintendo probably will too.

which means there's going to be a massive resurgence in computer gaming as consoles die a slow, strangled death.

I read a while back that Gamestop is seriously considering getting into the retro game business, which pisses me off royally. I'm selling most NES carts for effectively $2-$3 at best after shipping and before fees, and as soon as GS gets in, expect ebay to become a sudden storm of activity - both for civilians and for GS's future stock buyers outbidding the rest of us on just about everything.

/prediction//I could be wrong of course

If you don't mind me asking, where do you get your stock? Garage sales? Craigslist?

Big_Fat_Liar:What drives me away from Steam is not being able to play games I already bought.

The only issue I've had like that with Steam was with the original Dragon Age. Bought it on Steam, the package with all the DLC, and there was an issue about 30 hours in where the DLC wasn't able to "phone home", causing all my game saves afterward to pretty much be corrupt. By the time I realized what happened, I logged another 50 hours in. Steam pointed their fingers at Bioware as the publisher, Bioware pointed fingers at Steam as the distributor, and nothing was done to fix it at all.

Odd, since my pirated copy with all the DLC worked just fine. Funny, since I pirated it first, but liked it so much I paid for it, only to have it not work.

MrSteve007:That is pretty interesting. Looks like in a month or two, Windows 8 will have more Steam gamers on that platform than XP. Guess the haters are going to have to start eating crow about Win 8.

You mean the OS that comes pre-installed on every new PC sold is beating the OS that hasn't been sold in 3-4 years in a segment that is mostly focused on newer, high-end systems? No shiat, Sherlock.

Gonz:FirstNationalBastard: GAT_00: FirstNationalBastard: The new X-Box will fail.

On the bright side, without the possibility of a used-game market, the initial cost of new games should drop, since software companies don't have to account for lost revenue from purchases on the second-hand market.

Or, to put it another way: you'll get over it.

I seriously doubt this. Bear in mind that the software companies sell more than enough games to remain profitable at $60/game. Most will likely consider the extra money they earn from gamers that buy full priced games because they can't buy on the secondary market as "extra money" and better than the extra money they might gain by giving up $5/game across all of their sales just to pick up a few more "extra gamers" that simply won't pay $60 but will pay $55.

I could be wrong, but to me, games aren't fungible items. Halo 4 isn't Madden which isn't Bioshock or GTA. In otherwords, the games aren't close enough equivalents for competitors to drive prices down through competition.

HeartBurnKid:You mean the OS that comes pre-installed on every new PC sold is beating the OS that hasn't been sold in 3-4 years in a segment that is mostly focused on newer, high-end systems? No shiat, Sherlock.

Oh, how quickly the talking points change. Before it was: "Windows 8 isn't selling, it's a flop." MS then announces that it's selling as well as Win 7 did. The next excuse was "Those aren't real sales to consumers, it's just a bunch of licenses and boxes sitting on shelves." Then came "Well, it's selling on new systems, but people are wiping and installing Windows 7 instead!" excuse. And now we have "It's pre-installed on every new PC sold!" excuse.

So you're telling me that Windows 8 became 8% of the total computer gaming market in *3-months* purely because it's sold on new computers. Lol.

MrSteve007:/Oh, that's cute, OSX almost has 3% and Linux is up to nearly 1% of gamers these days. Sounds about right.

That is right. under 4% of gamers use those OSs for gaming. They either (A) Play Angry Birds-style games on tablets, or (B) have a game console. It has been that way since those OSs were invented, so I highly doubt the users give a f*ck about it. The ones that do dual boot their machines with a copy of Windows, so those figures aren't going to ever change for any reason.